Let's Play Doctor: Sony

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We offer Sony five key suggestions to get back in shape for 2008.

By Michael Thomsen

We may not be doctors, but, thanks to the power of the internet, we can pretend from time to time. To celebrate the coming of the New Year, we've decided to take some time out and offer five key suggestions to Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony to help make 2008 even better than 2007. Each company will face its own unique set of challenges over the next twelve months, but with a little grist and determination (and a little advice from well-meaning friends) we're confident that 2008 could be among the best years in videogame history for all parties involved. So long as our head-strong patients take a good listen to some humble doctor's advice.

It's hard to know where to begin with Sony, as riddled with problems as the PlayStation 3's first year on the market has been. Sony's newest console has consistently found itself at the bottom of sales charts and struggled to compete with the Xbox 360 and Wii in software sales. Major first party titles have struggled to break into the NPD's Top 10, while the PS3 version of major third party releases have typically lagged far behind their Xbox 360 and PS2 brethren. When major titles like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Assassin's Creed (the one-time PS3 exclusive) sell close to three times more copies on the 360 than the PS3, something nasty must be at work inside the once dominant industry titan.

Looking into the past, it's easy to see how Sony backed itself into a corner, launching the PS3 with a grossly inflated price, not pursuing third party publishers as aggressively as it had with its previous two consoles, and insisting on the inclusion of a Blu-Ray player whose benefits remain murky to the average consumer. Taken in conjunction with waves of grousing about the difficulty of programming for the PS3's complicated cell processors and limited memory constraints, it's easy to see why more people seem to be jumping off the Sony bandwagon than are jumping on.

Still, there are definite signs of life in Sony and while they may not have a stranglehold on home console market share any more, there are plenty of strong points for Sony to build on in the coming year. Sony has a compelling list of first party titles and PS3 exclusives (Metal Gear Solid 4, Final Fantasy 13, Little Big Planet, Resistance 2, Killzone 2) expected to release in 2008. The PS3 also has a growing library of PSN titles, which tend to favor independent-minded games like Flow and Everyday Shooter, that could prove to be a cornerstone of some of Sony's more creative endeavors (i.e. Home). Similarly, Sony has always been ambitious about using a diverse array of technology in conjunction with its consoles, from EyeToy to Folding@home, and the strength of the PS3 could support another groundbreaking peripheral to wrestle attention from Nintendo's plucky white media darling.

The Way to the Heart is Through a Wallet Heading into the PS3's launch, Ken Kutaragi might have thought the PS3 was "too cheap" at $599, but its first year on the market has shown that consumers aren't buying in. The PS3 has had a tough time staying ahead of even the GameCube's first year sales, much less matching the PS2's meteoric performance. While some have opined about the lack of a system-selling piece of software, we're of the opinion that the PS3's dauntingly high price point has kept most consumers, otherwise loyal to the brand, from jumping onboard with Sony's new console.

While the PS3 is an admirably complex and flexible piece of hardware, it's still far too expensive at its present $399/499 configuration to represent a really tantalizing value to the average consumer. Hardcore gamers have been slow to buy in, but with a steadily maturing library of games, with more triple-A exclusives coming next year that should only accelerate the gamer adoption rate. Likewise, with Blu-Ray handedly winning the HD format war, videophiles will have good reason to buy into PS3. Unfortunately, selling to hardcore gamers and videophiles isn't what sold over 100 million PS2's, and the mainstream consumer perception of the PS3's overall value will remain low so long as the price is the equivalent of half a month's rent.

Sony needs to get the base price of the PS3 down to $299 in time for the release of GTA IV. Microsoft has lots of price flexibility to play around with this year and they must surely be thinking about the right time to drop the 360's price even further. With so much third party overlap between the two systems, in combination with Microsoft's strong suite of first party titles, Sony will be in real danger of losing even more ground to 360 if they can't stay at least competitive on price. Even better would be a new GTA-themed bundle, priced at say $349, to exploit the Sony brand association of the previous GTA games and make a hard-sell to the mainstream consumer. We realize new price cuts only move profitability further into the future for the gaming group, but Sony is in an unenviable position, clinging to the PS2's and PSP's continuing sales while their next-gen console faces the direct threat of consumer marginalization and irrelevance. It's time for aggressive maneuvering and, as with Microsoft, price-point should be the first thing to change.

Step into the Holodeck We realize this one may sound a little crazy, but give us the benefit of the doubt for a minute. Sony scored a major public image victory with the EyeToy on PS2. It won them countless accolades in the mainstream press and captured mainstream consumers' attention with something totally new and exciting. It helped cement the PS2's identity as the most innovative and purely fun console on the market, offering an exceptional amount of variety for both games and peripherals.

Unfortunately, the EyeToy ran out of creative steam after a couple of wildly successful years (sorry, PlayStation Eye), but it made a strong case for the benefits of taking a calculated risk with a new piece of technology to wow the masses. With the Wii amazing mainstream gamers with its approachable hardware, a great opportunity exists for Sony to leapfrog Nintendo (much like it did with EyeToy, prefiguring Nintendo's commitment to motion-based gameplay) with the next technological evolution in gaming: moving games from static 2D monitors to fully interactive 3D. In other words, holograms.

It's crazy, right? Perhaps, but there is a growing pool of research on basic applications of holographic technology that suggest a consumer-oriented version of the process could be closer than we think. No, we're not suggesting a virtually projected version of Killzone 2, complete with VR goggles and a space antenna. The reality of gaming's first forays into holographic gameplay would probably be much, much simpler. Like, say, playing a game of tennis where the ball came towards the player and moved back into the TV after being hit. Or a simple multi-player mini-game with players popping balloons that appeared in front of them. They PlayStation Eye could be used to track player movement relative to the hologram and ensure that the hologram behaved in accordance with player interaction.

Admittedly, the finalization of a consumer-grade holographic display would be a giant proposition, and an expensive gambit for Sony to pursue. It's also all but impossible to imagine a technology like this would see the light of day in 2008. That being said, it is our humble estimation that this is the year Sony should seriously begin experimenting with practical applications of the technology with an eye (no pun intended) towards eventually releasing a holographic peripheral for the PS3. If holography ultimately proves impossible there are still a number of other methods for creating a 3D gaming experience that might be experimented with. It wouldn't be a guaranteed success, but it would create an instant media frenzy and get the PS3 huge amounts of mainstream mindshare. If the Wii starts to feel like a gimmick to many consumers in a year or two, the timing would be perfect for Sony to lure those converted mainstream gamers to their console with the promise of the next evolution in interactive entertainment.

Go Indie, Go Arthouse The PlayStation Network has built a surprising reputation over the last year as home to a number of unconventional, artistically-minded games that have pushed the boundaries of what sorts of experiences people can expect in games. Titles like Flow, Everyday Shooter, Super Stardust HD, and Calling All Cars have, in contrast to XBLA's virtual clearinghouse of simple PC games, turned the PSN into a vibrant and expanding community for fans of games that take major risks with their aesthetics and core gameplay. Not all these titles have been successful, but they do demonstrate Sony's willingness to try new things with their downloadable content that has the potential to create a thriving interactive community of video gaming aesthetes and starry-eyed indie developers.